Chemotherapy week two has been an epic failure. (Is it just me, or do you think of Aaron Park whenever someone uses that term?) Anyway, after five and a half hours at the hospital’s Infusion Center, session two was cancelled by the doctor. Again, my wife had an allergic reaction to the chemo drug even though they gave her three different drugs to prevent any reaction prior to beginning the introduction of the main drug. She was given no more than a fourth of the solution. We were sent home with orders that the doctor would be contacting us the next day.
Some here at the blog wonder if my wife’s reaction is related to the fact that she is a Trump loving Republican that is being given a known poison called “tax all” via an IV. Clearly many Democrats in California are addicted to this stuff. As you might expect, “tax all” was the easy path. One that has now been denied to us as we learned from the doctor the following day.
In reality, my wife ended up speaking with the doctor twice the following day. It looks like the new treatment will be Cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil (5-FU).
If I have this right, Cisplatin will be given weekly at the Infusion Clinic and the fluorouracil will be administered at home over a series of days via a pump connected to a port. Yep, we get to do self-administered chemotherapy for the next three weeks. What could possibly go wrong?
This treatment requires that my wife has a “port” installed.
Your healthcare provider’s decision to recommend a port may depend on several things. Some chemotherapy medications can only be given through a port because they are too caustic to be delivered into a peripheral vein.
Beyond that, using a port is often easier than inserting an IV each time if you will be having several infusions of chemotherapy.
Chemotherapy Ports Benefits and Risks
The port may be placed on your upper chest or occasionally your upper arm. It is then attached to a catheter tube that is threaded into one of the large veins near your neck, such as the subclavian vein or jugular vein, and ends near the top of your heart.
Oh, while all this is happening, the radiation therapy continues, and its effects are starting to manifest.
Lastly, Really Right junior has come home from school with a runny nose, sore throat, and cough. As a precaution, we told him to start the over-the-counter Covid symptom reduction stuff that we bought at the local pharmacy. We bought the stuff just in case something like this happened.
Week three is coming fast and looks to be a bumpy ride.